Youth Studies

YOUTH STUDIES

In 2005 the "question of Muslim youth" was all the rage in Europe and around the world. With the "War on Terror" in full force, Muslim youth were the objects of global attention. At the time, I was living in the Netherlands and working at the ISIM Review of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (based in Leiden). It was during this period that I shifted my focus from understanding youth as students whose experiences were mediated through educational institutions, to studying youth as political and cultural agents in their own right. After editing a special issue of the ISIM Review on Youth, I took an academic position at the International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam where I became convenor of the newly established Children and Youth Studies (CYS) MA specialization. From that time, I have focused more attention on children and youth in development processes. I have written about youth in relation to Islam, livelihoods, social media, revolution, migration and precarity. See also the section on Education Studies.